by Robin Cook
Chet started waving his hands and silently but emphatically mouthing the word no over and over again. Jack ignored him.
“If you think it would help in any way,” Helen said. “It’s certainly all right by me.”
Jack explained to the woman what he’d said to Chet, particularly about checking to see if any of the recent shipment had been sold and sent out. Helen understood immediately.
“Perhaps I can come up and get the keys,” Jack suggested.
“That won’t be necessary,” Helen said. “The address is Twenty-seven Walker Street, and there is a stamp collecting firm right next door. The proprietor’s name is Hyman Fein-gold. He was a friend of my husband. They had keys for each other’s shops in case of an emergency. I can give him a call so that he is expecting you.”
“That’s perfect,” Jack said. “Meanwhile, have you spoken with your physician?”
“I did,” Helen said. “He’s sending over some antibiotics. He’s also recommended I get vaccinated.”
“I think that is a good idea,” Jack said.
After disconnecting, Jack stood up and got his bomber jacket from behind the door.
“Aren’t you going to ask my opinion about this proposed field trip?” Chet asked.
“Nope,” Jack said. “I already know your opinion. But I’m going just the same. I can’t concentrate, so I might as well do something useful. Besides, now you’ll be able to get some work done. Hold the fort, sport!”
Chet waved with an expression of irritated resignation. He thought it was crazy for Jack to go running out on a site visit, but from past experience he knew better than to try to change Jack’s mind once it had been made up.
Whistling a merry tune, Jack took the stairs down to the third floor and ducked into the microbiology lab. Anticipating his bike ride downtown, he began to feel better than he had all day.
Agnes Finn wasn’t available, so Jack spoke with the shift supervisor. She was more than happy to supply him with a bag of culture tubes, latex gloves, micropore masks, an isolation gown, and a hood. Jack knew that a biological isolation suit would have been safer, but he felt it wasn’t necessary. It also wouldn’t be immediately available, and Jack didn’t want to wait. And besides, he was still convinced that in all likelihood Mr. Jason Papparis had gotten his illness at his warehouse, not at his office.
With his supplies in hand Jack went down to the basement area and unlocked his bike. But instead of heading directly downtown, he rode over to the University Hospital. As a firm believer in the old adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” he’d decided it would be wise to take some prophylactic antibiotics.
The ride downtown was exhilarating and transpired almost without incident. Jack went south on Second Avenue, then cut west on Houston. He then used Broadway to get to Walker. On Broadway he had a minor run-in with the driver of a delivery van. But only a few heated words were exchanged before the van sped off.
Jack locked his bike to a “No Parking” sign just west of the Corinthian Rug Company office. He walked to the store’s front window and gazed at the rugs and hides on display. There were only a handful, and all were bleached from sunlight and covered with a fine layer of dust, suggesting they’d not been moved in years. Jack was certain they’d not come from the new shipment.
Cupping his hands around his face, Jack peered into the office. It was sparsely furnished. There were two desks. One was functional as a desk with the usual accoutrements; the other supported a copy machine and a fax. There were several upright file cabinets. In the rear were two interior doors. Both were closed.
Jack walked to the door. The gold stenciling glittered against the darkened interior. Jack tried the door. It was locked, as he expected.
The stamp shop was just west of the rug shop, and Jack went there directly. The bells on the entrance door surprised him with their harsh jangle and made him realize he was tense.
A customer was seated, poring over a collection of stamps in glassine envelopes.
A man whom Jack took to be the proprietor stood behind the counter. As soon as he looked up, Jack introduced himself.
“Ah, Dr. Stapleton,” Hyman said softly, as if the spoken word were somehow irreverent in the philatelic peacefulness. He motioned for Jack to step to the side.
“It’s a terrible tragedy what happened to Mr. Papparis,” Hyman whispered. He handed Jack a set of keys on a ring. “Do you think there is any reason for me to be alarmed?”
“No,” Jack whispered. “Unless Mr. Papparis made it a habit to show you his merchandise.”
Hyman shook his head.
“Did Mr. Papparis ever bring any of his rugs and hides to his office? I mean, other than the ones in his window.”
“Not lately,” Hyman said. “He used to bring in samples years ago when he’d go out on the road. But he didn’t have to do that anymore.”
Jack held up the keys. “Thanks for your help. I’ll have these back to you in short order.”
“Take your time,” Hyman said. “I’m glad you’re checking things out.”
Jack went back out to his bike and got his supplies out of his basket. He then went to the door of the rug office and unlocked it. Before he opened it he put on the gown, the hood, the gloves, and the mask. A few of the passersby altered their pace ever so slightly when they caught a glimpse of Jack’s preparations. Jack considered their indifference a tribute to the equanimity of New Yorkers.
Jack pushed open the door and stepped over the threshold. He felt the hackles on the back of his neck rise. There was something unnervingly sinister about the possibility that some of the motes dancing in the ray of light spilling in from the street could be lethal. For a second he considered backing out and leaving the job to others. Then he chided himself for what he called medieval superstition. He was, after all, reasonably protected.
The office was as spartan as it had appeared through the window. The only decoration was a series of travel posters of the Greek Islands put out by Olympic Airlines. A large wall calendar also had scenes of Greece. Although the hides and rugs in the window were dusty, the rest of the office was spotless and smelled slightly of cleanser. At Jack’s feet were a few letters and magazines that had evidently been shoved through the mail slot. Jack picked them up and moved over to the desk.
The surface of the desk had a blotter, a metal in-and-out basket, and several small imitation ancient Greek vases. The office was neat and devoid of clutter. Jack dutifully put the mail in the “in” basket.
Jack turned on the overhead lights. He took out his collection of culture tubes and swabbed various surfaces. As he swabbed the desk he noticed something glittering in the center of the blotter. Bending down he could see that it was a tiny, cerulean blue, iridescent star. It seemed strangely out of place in the austere environment.
Jack peered into the wastebasket. It was empty. He walked back to the closed doors. One led to a lavatory, where he swabbed the sink and the back of the toilet. The other door led to a corridor that communicated with the central stairhall of the building. Except for the few in the window, there were no other rugs or hides.
When Jack finished with the culture tubes, he took them into the bathroom and washed their exteriors before putting them back into the bag he’d brought them in. Finally, he approached the file cabinets. Now he wanted to find out all he could about the last incoming shipment of rugs and hides and whether any had been sent out.
____
FIVE
Monday, October 18
3:45 P.M.
Yuri looked up into the face of the smug businessman as he carefully counted out single greenbacks into Yuri’s waiting palm. Yuri had brought the individual all the way from La Guardia Airport to a posh East Side manse. During the entire trip, Yuri had had to endure yet another long lecture on America’s virtues and its inevitable Cold War victory. This time the emphasis was on Ronald Reagan, and how he had singlehandedly vanquished the “Evil Empire.” The man had correctly guessed Yur
i’s ethnic origins from a glance at Yuri’s name on his taxi license. This had provoked his monologue on U.S. superiority on all fronts: moral, economic, political.
Yuri had not said a word throughout the interminable harangue although he’d been sorely tempted at several junctures. Some of the fare’s statements had made his blood boil, particularly when he condescendingly voiced pity for the Russian people who he thought were burdened with feelings of insecurity from having to endure continual inept leadership.
“And here’s a couple of extra dollars for your trouble,” the man said with a wink as he added to the pile in Yuri’s hand. Yuri was holding twenty-nine ragged, single dollar bills. The fare on the meter plus the Triboro Bridge toll was twenty-seven dollars and fifty cents.
“Is that supposed to be the tip?” Yuri asked with obvious disdain.
“Is something the matter with it?” the man asked. He straightened up. His eyebrows arched indignantly. He slipped his briefcase out from under his arm and held it as if he might be tempted to use it defensively.
Yuri took his right hand off the steering wheel and lifted the final two bills from the pile. He then let them go so that they wafted in short, intersecting arcs toward the pavement.
The man’s expression changed from one of indignation to one of anger. His cheeks empurpled.
“That’s a donation to the American economy,” Yuri said. He then pressed on the accelerator and sped away. In his rear-view mirror he saw the businessman bending down and retrieving the money from the gutter. The image gave Yuri a modicum of satisfaction. It was heartening to see the man stoop for such a paltry sum. He couldn’t believe how cheap some Americans were despite their ostentatious wealth.
Yuri’s day had improved dramatically following the vain attempt to see Curt Rogers and Steve Henderson at the fire-house on Duane Street. As a treat and mini-celebration of his imminent return to rodina, he’d gone to a small Russian restaurant for a sit-down lunch with hot borscht and a glass of vodka. A conversation in Russian with the owner added to the experience even though speaking in his native tongue also made him feel a touch melancholy.
After lunch the fares had been okay and steady. They’d generally kept to themselves except for the last guy on the run in from La Guardia Airport.
Yuri stopped at a light on Park Avenue. He was intending to head over to Fifth in hopes of getting some of the upscale hotel work. Instead, an older woman in a babushka stepped between parked cars and raised her hand. When the light changed Yuri pulled alongside and the woman climbed in.
“Where to?” Yuri asked while eyeing his new fare in the rearview mirror. Her clothes were functional and, although not threadbare, at least well worn. She looked like someone who should have been using the subway.
“One-oh-seven West Tenth Street,” the woman said with an accent heavier than Yuri’s. He recognized it immediately. It was Estonian, which brought mixed memories.
They drove in silence for a while. For the first time all day Yuri was the one tempted to speak. He glanced frequently at his passenger. There was something about her that was familiar. She had settled herself comfortably with her large hands folded in her lap. Her relaxed, peasantlike features coupled with tiny, twinkling eyes and faintly smiling lips radiated an inner tranquillity.
“Are you Estonian?” Yuri finally asked.
“I am,” the woman said. “Are you Russian?”
Yuri nodded and watched the woman’s reaction. After years of occupation, there was a strong anti-Russian sentiment in Estonia. Yuri’s feelings about Estonia weren’t as negative as he feared this woman’s might be about Russia. Although he’d had difficulties there during his odyssey to America, he’d also met some friendly, generous, and helpful people.
“How long have you been here?” the woman asked. Her voice was devoid of malice.
“Since 1994,” Yuri said.
“Did you leave your motherland with your whole family?”
“No,” Yuri managed. His throat had gone dry. “I came by myself.”
“That must have been very difficult,” the woman said em-pathetically. “And very lonely.”
The woman’s simple question and her reaction to Yuri’s answer unleashed a flood of emotion in Yuri, including a strong sense of shame at having abandoned his family, although there’d been very little to leave behind. The toska he’d struggled with earlier returned with a vengeance. At the same time he realized why the woman looked familiar. She reminded Yuri of his own mother, even though their features were not at all similar. It was less the woman’s appearance than her bearing, particularly her powerful serenity, that made Yuri think of his mother.
Yuri did not think often about her. It was much too painful. Nadya Davydov had loved Yuri and his younger brother Yegor and, to the best of her abilities, had protected her sons from the brutal beatings their father, Anatoly, gave them at the slightest provocation. Yuri still had scars on the back of his legs from a beating he got when he was eleven. He was in the fourth grade at the time and had been recently inducted into the Young Pioneers. Part of the uniform was a red scoutlike tie worn with a red flag pin containing a tiny portrait of Lenin. Somehow Yuri had lost the pin on the way home from school, and when Anatoly found out about it that night, he went berserk. In a drunken stupor induced by his consumption of nearly a liter of vodka, he’d beaten Yuri until Yuri’s pants were clotted with blood.
For the most part Nadya had been able to divert Anatoly’s nightly drunken bursts of violence onto herself. The usual scenario was for Nadya stoically to withstand a few blows along with Anatoly’s barbed ranting. Then she would stand defiantly between her husband and her children, sometimes with blood streaming down her face. Anatoly would continue to swear at her and threaten more blows. When she wouldn’t move or even speak, he’d shake his fists at his kids and shout that if they ever committed the same transgression that had stimulated his outburst, he’d kill them. He’d then stagger off to pass out on the only couch in the apartment. It was a scene that repeated itself almost nightly until Yuri had reached the eighth grade.
In 1970, on the eve of May 1st, the major Soviet holiday, Anatoly drank more than double his usual quota of vodka. In a particularly foul mood, he chased the rest of his family from the apartment, locked the door, and then passed out. During the night, while Nadya, Yuri, and Yegor slept as best as they could on the benches in the communal kitchen, Anatoly aspirated his own vomit. In the morning he was found cold and stiff with rigor mortis.
It was difficult for the family after Anatoly’s death. They were forced to move from their two-room second-floor apartment to a single room on the top floor of their tenement that was freezing cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer.
More problematic was the loss of Anatoly’s income, although that difficulty was partially offset by significantly less expense for vodka.
Luckily, the following year Nadya received a promotion at the ceramics factory where she’d been employed since her graduation from vocational school. That meant that Yuri could stay in school through the tenth grade.
Unfortunately, Yuri developed into a withdrawn and belligerent teenager who got into frequent fights in response to teasing by fellow classmates. As a consequence, his studies suffered. His final grades and test scores were not sufficient for the university where his mother had hoped he’d go. Instead, he enrolled in the local vocational college and studied to become a microbiological technician. He’d been advised there was a burgeoning demand for the field, especially in Sverdlovsk. Conveniently for Yuri, the government had built a large pharmaceutical factory to produce vaccines for human and animal use.
“Have you been home to Russia since coming to America?” the Estonian woman asked after they’d ridden for several blocks in silence.
“Not yet,” Yuri said. He perked up at the thought of his imminent return. In fact he already had an open ticket to Moscow via Frankfurt and departing from Newark Airport. He’d chosen Newark since it was located to the west
and south of Manhattan. He was planning on leaving the moment he finished the laydown of the bioweapon in Central Park, and he didn’t want to risk going east to JFK Airport. The wind invariably blew west to east. The last thing he wanted was to be victimized by his own terrorism.
Obtaining the airline ticket had not been without difficulty. Yuri had never been able to obtain a Russian international passport, and although he had an American green card from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, he still didn’t have an American passport. At least not an authentic one. Yuri had had to pay to have a fake passport made. But it didn’t have to be a particularly good one, since all he intended to use it for was to buy the airline ticket. As a patriot, he was confident he’d have no trouble getting into Russia without proper documents, and he certainly didn’t intend to return to the United States.
“My husband and I went back to Estonia last year,” the woman said. “It was wonderful. Good things are happening in the Baltics. We might even eventually return to live in our hometown.”
“America is not the heaven it wants the world to believe it is,” Yuri said.
“People must work very hard here,” the woman concurred. “And you must be careful. There are many thieves who want to take your money, like investment people and people wanting to sell you swampland in Florida.”
Yuri nodded in agreement, although to him the real thief was what Curt Rogers called the Zionist Occupied Government. It wasn’t only in a metaphorical sense relating to the American Dream hoax; it was also quite literal. Government agents always had their hands out to steal most of every dollar Yuri made. If it wasn’t the criminals in Washington, it was the thieves in the state government in Albany or the bandits in the city government in Manhattan. According to Curt all this taxation was unconstitutional and therefore blatantly illegal.
“I hope you send some money home to your family,” the woman continued, unaware of the effect her conversation was having on her driver. “My husband and I do as often as we can.”